1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a position detection apparatus, a position detection method, a testing apparatus and a camera module manufacturing apparatus. More specifically, the invention relates to a position detection apparatus for detecting position of an image pickup device that outputs an output signal corresponding to intensity of detected light.
The present application relates to Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-280235 filed on Jul. 25, 2003 and PCT Application No. JP2004/010470 filed on Jul. 23, 2004. The contents described in those applications are incorporated in the present application by reference as part thereof.
2. Related Art
With miniaturization and increase of definition of camera, miniaturization and multiplication of pixels of image pickup devices such as a CCD image sensor are being promoted lately. The miniaturization and multiplication of pixels of the image pickup device may be realized by miniaturizing photo-detecting elements. However, an aperture area of the photo-detecting element becomes small and thereby a quality of light detected by each photo-detecting element decreases as the photo-detecting element is miniaturized. To that end, a technology of increasing the aperture area by forming a condensing micro lens on each photo-detecting element has been developed.
Still more, a distance between the image pickup device and a lens for illuminating light on the image pickup device is shortened as the camera is miniaturized. Therefore, a short focal distance lens having a short focal distance is used for the camera module.
However, the image pickup device cannot be evenly illuminated by light in testing such image pickup device if position of the short focal distance lens is misaligned from designed position with respect to the image pickup device. Therefore, there has been a case that it is unable to accurately test the image pickup device. Then, it has been necessary to accurately detect the position of the short focal distance lens and the image pickup device and to adjust with the designed position.